30 January 1972, the day that became known as Bloody Sunday, is remembered as one of the darkest and bloodiest events of The Troubles in Northern Ireland. Thirteen people were killed when members of the British Army’s Parachute Regiment opened fire on civil rights demonstrators in the Bogside, a predominantly Catholic part of Londonderry. The ongoing fight for justice has driven the long process towards prosecutions culminating in the murder charges brought against the paratrooper known as Soldier F. Author Ian Hernon, who worked as a reporter during The Troubles, draws upon eye-witness accounts and his own recollections from the period to create a compelling account of how the tragedy unfolded. He describes how, in the run-up to the massacre, passions were already boiling over, with the atrocities on both sides, and looks at the activities of 1 Para along with the tactics employed by the IRA. Fifty years after the events of Bloody Sunday, this important book considers the immediate aftermath, including the Widgery ‘whitewash’, the protests and internments, the bombings and tit-for-tat violence, and the long decades of social unrest before an imperfect reconciliation.

The scene was set for a classic Western showdown. On a dusty main street, a sheriff backed by townspeople faced down a gang of heavily armed hired gunslingers. Tension rose, hard words were exchanged, and someone drew first. A few minutes later 10 men were dead or dying, and several more suffered gunshot wounds. The hired guns, those that remained on their feet that is, fled. But this was not a shoot-out in the Wild West of Wyoming or Montana or South Dakota in the 1880s, or a Hollywood re-imagining of such an event. This was not Dodge City or Abilene. This was the West Virginia mining town of Matewan in 1920. By contrast the more celebrated gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone lasted 30 seconds and left three dead. And Matewan was not an aberration. In the era of the post-Civil War Wild West, it can be argued that the most dangerous place to be was in the East. It was the inevitably violent outcome of massive social upheaval - race wars with lynchings and massacres, heavily armed confrontation between infant trade unionism and the forces of capitalism, murderous feuds between corrupt lawmen and the early Mafia. These were confrontations in which the US government bombed and marginalised their own citizens, the law was twisted for private ends, and 'fake news' became the norm.

30 January 1972, the day that became known as Bloody Sunday, is remembered as one of the darkest and bloodiest events of The Troubles in Northern Ireland. Thirteen people were killed when members of the British Army's Parachute Regiment opened fire on civil rights demonstrators in the Bogside, a predominantly Catholic part of Londonderry. The ongoing fight for justice has driven the long process towards prosecutions culminating in the murder charges brought against the paratrooper known as Soldier F. Author Ian Hernon, who worked as a reporter during The Troubles, draws upon eye-witness accounts and his own recollections from the period to create a compelling account of how the tragedy unfolded. He describes how, in the run-up to the massacre, passions were already boiling over, with the atrocities on both sides, and looks at the activities of 1 Para along with the tactics employed by the IRA. Fifty years after the events of Bloody Sunday, this important book considers the immediate aftermath, including the Widgery 'whitewash', the protests and internments, the bombings and tit-for-tat violence, and the long decades of social unrest before an imperfect reconciliation.

'Under Corbyn, the true Left of radical campaigning and genuine anti-racism has been bastardised into a hate cult distinguished by repellent self-righteousness. Corbyn's cronies, more than willing to act with venality when it suits them, have told themselves that if you say you are on the side of the poor and the downtrodden, anything goes. Anyone who disagrees is obviously on the side of the imperialist, the fat cat bankers and hedge fund managers, the exploiters driven by greed alone to make their billions.' Charges that anti-Semitism was widespread in the Labour Party did much to undermine Jeremy Corbyn's chances of entering No. 10 Downing Street in the 2019 general election. This book, by a veteran political correspondent, examines whether such charges were justified and to what extent they were facilitated by a lack of leadership. It also traces the roots of anti-Semitism on the Left which can make uncomfortable reading for adherents of such socialist icons as Karl Marx, Keir Hardie, Ernest Bevin, John Burns and George Bernard Shaw. The strand of anti-Semitism that has existed on the Left since the birth of socialism as an effective movement is hard to fathom - especially as Jews played an integral part in the creation of both the British trade union movement and the Labour Party. No one with a single brain cell can doubt the persecution and death camps of the twentieth century. In addition, Zionism - opposition to which is now used as a dodgy excuse for anti-Semitism - was for decades embraced by the Left as a template for a socialist paradise. Ian Hernon writes: 'The most virulent anti-Semitism has over the last century or so come from the Far Right, the British Establishment, the aristocracy and home-grown bigots of all classes. But that does not excuse the Left for its, in some instances, overlapping racism due to populist pursuit of power, bigotry, ignorance or a twisted understanding of history and socialist ideals.'

The scene was set for a classic Western showdown. On a dusty main street, a sheriff backed by townspeople faced down a gang of heavily armed hired gunslingers. Tension rose, hard words were exchanged, and someone drew first. A few minutes later 10 men were dead or dying, and several more suffered gunshot wounds. The hired guns, those that remained on their feet that is, fled. But this was not a shoot-out in the Wild West of Wyoming or Montana or South Dakota in the 1880s, or a Hollywood re-imagining of such an event. This was not Dodge City or Abilene. This was the West Virginia mining town of Matewan in 1920. By contrast the more celebrated gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone lasted 30 seconds and left three dead. And Matewan was not an aberration. In the era of the post-Civil War Wild West, it can be argued that the most dangerous place to be was in the East. It was the inevitably violent outcome of massive social upheaval - race wars with lynchings and massacres, heavily armed confrontation between infant trade unionism and the forces of capitalism, murderous feuds between corrupt lawmen and the early Mafia. These were confrontations in which the US government bombed and marginalised their own citizens, the law was twisted for private ends, and 'fake news' became the norm.

As Stuart Laycock's book All the Countries We've Ever Invaded: and the Few We Never got Round to shows, the British have not been backward in coming forward when it comes to aggressive forays abroad. But it hasn't all been one way. In 1193 for example, the Danes teamed up serial offenders, the French, for a full-scale invasion. The French Prince Louis the Lion came close to success exactly 150 years after the Battle of Hastings. The 100 Years War saw multiple raids on British towns and ports by the Spanish and French. Following the Armada, there was the bloodless invasion of 1688, Bonnie Prince Charlie's march south, the remarkable American John Paul Jones' attack on Whitehaven during the American War of Independence, the German occupation of the Channel Islands and - the great what if of British, perhaps world history - the threat of Operation Sealion. Ian Hernon brings his journalistic flair to bear in this dramatic narrative of the survival of an island race over 900 years - sometimes, surprisingly, against the odds. Whilst such a history (one leaving out the boring bits) is bound to entertain, it also cannot fail to inform: where were shots last exchanged with an enemy on the mainland? At Graveney Marsh in Kent.